Stony Brook Contemplates Campus in South Korea

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One of the proposed campus designs. Photo credit: Stony Brook University.

By Micah Danney

Stony Brook University’s plan for a satellite campus in South Korea was a topic of much discussion for sophomore business major Sunny Kim, 21, and many of her friends. As international students from South Korea, their excitement was diluted by pointed skepticism.

"I paid a lot of money to come here," said Kim, who attended high school in Virginia and Tennessee before coming to Stony Brook. She also noted the long, arduous process she went through to get a visa, saying the money and time spent being able to study at Stony Brook seemed like a little bit of a waste if the same degree is now available back home for her.

Stony Brook is one of 10 U.S. universities currently in discussion with the South Korean government about opening branches that would make up the Songdo Global University Campus. The campus will be located in the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) on South Korea’s northwestern coast. The IFEZ is an area just west of the capital city of Seoul that the country’s government is developing with the intent to create the "best business city in Northeast Asia," according to the IFEZ Authority’s website.

Deputy Provost Brent Lindquist, the official in charge of Stony Brook’s Songdo plans, returned last week from a trip to South Korea.

"The Korean government recognizes that continued development of its knowledge-based economy…requires interaction with international companies specializing in cutting edge, knowledge based industry," he wrote in an e-mail, adding that South Korea "correctly understands that higher education is a prime component of any knowledge-based economy."

Economics senior Giho Kwon, 25, understands the benefits a satellite campus could offer both his university and his native country.

"I think it’s a pretty good idea," he said. "It’s good for the country’s education and economy."

But, Kwon also expressed some concerns about the standards of the potential branch.

"If the admission process is selective, that would be good," he said, but worried that the prestige of having a degree from Stony Brook might be diminished if local Korean students are too easily admitted at Songdo.

"I paid a lot to come to Stony Brook," said senior sociology major Hyenhee Roh, 22. "I wouldn’t want to see many others get the same degree without having to expend as much."

Lindquist maintained that admission standards for Songdo would be no different than those at Stony Brook’s main campus, and said programs offered there would be under the control of Stony Brook faculty. He said enrollment there, anticipated to reach between 1,500 and 2,000 people, is expected to be primarily students from the Asian continent, not just South Korea.

He also says that transferring between Songdo and the main Stony Brook campus, as well as its other satellites in Southampton and Manhattan, should be fairly simple.

"As this is a Stony Brook branch campus, students from the Songdo campus can request to transfer to main campus, and vice versa, with no interruption in their program," he said.

The programs currently expected to be at Songdo are business, computer science, information systems, electrical engineering and technology systems management. They reflect the kind of industry that South Korea hopes to attract to the IFEZ from the international community, as well as the vision the nation has for its economic place in the world.

South Korea "boasts the world’s highest broadband internet access per capita and its IT industry competitiveness is ranked among the top three in the world," wrote Lindquist. "It has an extremely competitive education system and a highly skilled and motivated workforce possessing the world’s highest scientific literacy and second-highest mathematical literacy."

Lindquist also noted a host of potential benefits for Stony Brook in having the branch. Beyond the obvious study abroad opportunities for university students, he claimed it would advance the development of the university's "international footprint, identity, and reputation."

"Most leading U.S. universities have a foreign imprint of some sort," he noted.

According to a July 2009 article in Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, American universities vying for a spot at Songdo include Duke and Columbia, with North Carolina State University and Stony Brook leading the way in making progress with their plans.

While dubious of the possible effects the campus may have on her degree, Sunny Kim does like the idea of being able to study at Songdo. She tried to spend a semester there once but said she was told she could not because she was native to the country.

"A lot of people get homesick," she said, implying it would have been nice to be able to study at home for some amount of time.

Kyung Kim, who felt somewhat cheated that a Stony Brook degree would be more easily available to students in Asia, also appreciates the opportunity Songdo would offer him.

“I would definitely be interested in studying there,” he said.